CUST.7:4 - Solution

CUST.7:4.1 - Fix the comparison boundary and growth claim

Name the customer result, customer population or case mix, period and service conditions that the alternatives must support. Include current obligations affected by the choice. Comparing a one-time prototype with a maintained service without their different horizons gives a misleading answer.

State the growing quantity. “Scale” might mean more customers with the same mix, more variants, greater throughput, more operating locations, longer support or more delivery partners. If several grow, keep them distinct and explain their interactions.

State the proposed mechanism. Shared preparation may reduce setup per case. Automation may reduce a particular operation. A partner may add capacity. Standard interfaces may reduce change work. Each mechanism predicts a particular burden change; none follows merely from calling the result productized.

CUST.7:4.2 - Recover complete work and resource obligations

Start from the constructed alternatives, not from an assumed price. Trace preparation, local execution, adaptation, qualification, acceptance, assistance, coordination, updates, support, transition and ending. Include the recipient’s work when the alternative transfers effort to them.

Use MA.8 — Account for Customer and Product Economics Over Time for the complete accounting method over customer and product economics. Supply the alternatives and time boundary; receive the relevant cost, capacity, allocation, support-tail and economic results under their stated assumptions. CUST’s contribution is to ensure the customization/family alternatives supply the whole relevant work, then use the returned account in the disposition.

Keep unlike resources distinguishable. An hour of a scarce specialist is not automatically substitutable by an hour of general delivery work. Record when a resource is needed, not only its total amount. Separate committed obligations from optional investment and from work whose funding or provider is still unknown.

Avoid double counting common development across customers while still making its actual financing visible. A contribution can be valuable over a portfolio even when one case cannot bear the whole preparation cost. Conversely, allocating costs away from a customer does not remove the underlying burden.

CUST.7:4.3 - Test the claimed burden change

Compare what changes in the intended growth condition.

Distinguish capacity expansion from economies of scale, economies from shared variety and learning. Hiring proportionally more performers may support more customers without reducing work per customer. That can still be a good decision if its costs and conditions fit the purpose.

When evidence is uncertain, identify the uncertainty that can change the decision. A small, permitted receiving trial may establish whether ordinary delivery still requires author intervention. It need not establish the whole future demand distribution.

CUST.7:4.4 - Join economic attractiveness with operating feasibility

Use OPS.10 — Qualify Operating Capacity Under Variability for capacity under variability and OPS.13 — Align Commitments, Resources, and Service Outcomes for simultaneous commitments, resources and service outcomes. Receive the supported workload, timing, variability and capacity conditions. OPS.14 — Relate Throughput, Cash, and Operating Consequences helps relate throughput, cash and operating consequences when that connection matters.

Compare those results on the same boundaries as the accounting answer. If the cost estimate assumes six deployments in a period but capacity supports only two, do not carry the six-case saving into the commitment. If a specialist is available only after the promised date, funding the hours does not repair the timing.

For an outcome arrangement, use the responsibility and operating concept obtained through SYSE.8. Include observation, corrective action, customer contributions, risk exposure and continuing work. Do not price an outcome from installation cost alone.

CUST.7:4.5 - Choose an attainable continuation

Choose among the complete alternatives: accept the supported scope, invest in a common contribution, charge or fund local work, retain assistance, add a qualified provider, change timing, narrow variants, separate offerings or decline the unsupported part.

In commercial provision, use the appropriate economic and cash consequences. In public or nonprofit provision, establish the useful result, available funding, allocation priorities and resource limits. A recipient need not pay a positive local margin, but someone must actually provide the needed contributions.

Identify who can commit the resources and who can change the promise. The case can proceed locally while a separately funded investment remains open. Avoid hiding that investment inside a delivery estimate or treating a hoped-for future sale as already committed support.

CUST.7:4.6 - Retain the conditions that make the decision true

State the relevant volume, mix, period, support conditions and uncertain assumptions. Keep the comparison recoverable in ordinary working material. Reopen it when demand mix, assistance, variant interactions, update frequency or provider availability changes materially.

Use actual repetition to test the mechanism. If shared preparation saves setup but adds a larger support tail, revise the claim rather than reporting only the favorable measure. Return a false family assumption to CUST.3, a hidden delivery dependency to CUST.6 and an unaffordable migration to CUST.8.